Gene Watson was a chart-topping country singer in the 1970s best known for his hit Love in the Hot Afternoon. One of country's great singers, he continued to be successful in the '80s but drifted away in the '90s spending more time working in his garage fixing cars. He's put out two excellent albums, though, over the past three years. Watson is photographed in a carshop on August 11, 2009 in Houston, TX. Dr. Anthony Chavez MD. ( Mayra Beltran / Chronicle )

Gene Watson was a chart-topping country singer in the 1970s best known for his hit Love in the Hot Afternoon. One of country's great singers, he continued to be successful in the '80s but drifted away in the

Gene Watson was a chart-topping country singer in the 1970s best known for his hit Love in the Hot Afternoon. One of country's great singers, he continued to be successful in the '80s but drifted away in the '90s spending more time working in his garage fixing cars. He's put out two excellent albums, though, over the past three years. Watson is photographed in a carshop on August 11, 2009 in Houston, TX. Dr. Anthony Chavez MD. ( Mayra Beltran / Chronicle )

Gene Watson was a chart-topping country singer in the 1970s best known for his hit Love in the Hot Afternoon. One of country's great singers, he continued to be successful in the '80s but drifted away in the

As a country singer and mechanic, Gene Watson belongs to the road. Watson has been performing for 50 years and continues to travel the country in a bus performing for fans of his rich, smooth voice, which made him a star in the '70s. When he's not performing, Watson often can be found in his auto shop a few miles north of downtown. It's fitting that a man who spends so much time around tires would have a street named for him. That happens Tuesday when Paris, Texas, honors him with Gene Watson Boulevard.

Honorary and historical markers are difficult enough to come by. Street names seem decidedly more so. Gene Autry Drive runs east from the highway through Tioga (that's north of Dallas) past a museum honoring the cowboy singer and actor. The Autry museum is temporarily closed while the two women who run it tend to ailing spouses. But the street, which stretches between an antique store and a much-loved BBQ joint, ties Autry to his hometown.

Austin turned 2nd Street into Willie Nelson Boulevard, and a street in Lubbock carries Buddy Holly's name. Carthage, which does much to promote itself as the hometown of country crooner Jim Reeves, hasn't put his name on a street sign yet. A petition to turn Industrial Boulevard - a colorless name - in Dallas into a street honoring native son Stevie Ray Vaughan looks to have lost momentum.

Changing a street name is no easy task. For starters, there can be issues of sensitivity in renaming streets. When New York City wished to honor late Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio, there was talk of putting his name on the Major Deegan Expressway, which ran near Yankee Stadium. To have done so would have slighted the memory of William Francis Deegan, an architect, engineer and distinguished political figure in the city. The West Side Highway turned out to be a notable thoroughfare that didn't rob a historical figure of his legacy.

And with its numbered grid of streets, New York can better accommodate small stretches of a street with an entertainer's name. So there is Joey Ramone Place and Run-D.M.C.-JMJ Way. Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Hoboken has a Frank Sinatra Drive.

Houston entertainers don't fare quite so well. An alley in Oklahoma City (that happens to intersect with Mickey Mantle Drive) has been named Flaming Lips Alley. Notable Flaming Lip Steven Drozd grew up in Fort Bend County. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen - public figure more than entertainer - has U.S. 59 bearing his name. Nolan Ryan - ball player and beef purveyor more than entertainer - has a portion of Texas 288 named after him.

But most of the streets carrying names of people in Houston tend to be of an older vintage named after benefactors, civic leaders, old guard Lone Star legends and city-founder types, which can make them a good instigator for research if not a tourist photo destination. John Kirby Allen gets both a street and a parkway, which seems reasonable for his part in founding the city. Westheimer is named for Mitchell Westheimer, a German immigrant who built a large residence and Houston's first public school on the site where Lamar High School now stands.

Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was a poet and secessionist who served as the president of the Republic of Texas almost 175 years ago. James Walker Fannin was a commander involved in the Texas revolution, though it ended poorly for him and his soldiers.

(Hugh Roy) Cullen and (William Marsh) Rice were kind with their coin. (William Barret) Travis, (Stephen Fuller) Austin and (Samuel "Sam") Houston are well known in history books.

Entertainers can be more problematic. Their lives can be viewed as unsavory, their contributions more about pop culture than anything worthy of school text books. Watson's new street in Paris was nudged into being by a fan, who had to sell Watson as worthy to representatives of a community of about 25,000. The process in a city the size of Houston can require passage through a more prickly thicket.

Changing a street name these days in Houston would require action by the City Council. According to public affairs manager Suzy Hartgrove, the city's Planning and Development Department used to have a petition process for what they called "vanity street names," but that service has been discontinued. Developers are responsible for new street names, but new housing seems an odd place to honor, say, a music legend.

"It really comes down to an ordinance," Hartgrove says, "and you'd have to build community support for that. Remember, you're also changing somebody's address."

She suggests historical markers - like the one placed at the corner of Dowling and Francis two years ago to honor Lightnin' Hopkins - are a less logistically complicated option than stealing a street name from Dick Dowling, who fled Ireland during the potato famine and eventually settled in Houston. Here he was a bar owner, a charter member of Hook and Ladder Company No. 1 and a tactical and brave hero of the Battle of Sabine Pass.

In the case of Paris and Gene Watson, the street that bears his name required no former namesake to be forgotten, nor any addresses to change. Which could be seen as fitting considering Watson's account of his youth in Paris.

"Growing up, when we weren't living out of a converted school bus, working crops, I lived just off a small dirt road in Paris," he says, "and Paris is what I call my hometown. From that meager beginning, who would have thought there would ever be a street named after me in that great city?"